By James Leavey
Bernard Manning
The notoriously politically-incorrect Mancunian comedian, lights up.
JL: When did you start smoking?
BM: At school in the days of about 1939, just before the war…in the school playground, and all that carry on. It were the done thing. Everybody used to get a fag – you could buy two cigarettes and a match in the local shop for about a halfpenny.
JL: When was the last time you smoked – for you've given up smoking recently, haven't you?
BM: About 2-3 years ago, the diabetes had overtaken me, and me blood was out of order, and the doctor said, 'You know, you can't go on like this.' I was getting dizzy spells – well, I was in a right mess. So I just stopped, just like that. Just like that - and I were doing 40 a day. And when the racing was on - and I've had a few thousand pound on the horses in me time – I used to smoke a packet of cigarettes in a race meeting.
JL: Do you still wave a cigar around when you're on stage?
BM: I use it as a prop – it leads me in to a couple of gags about cigarettes. I say that, 'They give Roy Castle six months to live. He said 'I'll do it in four.'
(the late Roy Castle, who died of cancer and blamed it all on passive smoking, hosted a show on BBC childrens' television for many years, attempting each week to surpass the Guinness Book of Records in various activities, and was known for saying he would attempt each feat in less time than originally taken by the current record holder, i.e. 'He did it in five minutes, I reckon I can do it in four.' JL)
JL: If you did smoke a cigar now, would you to put it out if someone objected to your smoking?
BM: I wouldn't, because it's my prerogative to smoke – it's my choice. And there's nothing more enjoyable than a nice cigar. You twiddle it around in your fingers, it's a confidence feeling…It's a nice little prop on the stage to twiddle round your fingers. It's a funny thing, I don't know… It's like 'The Caine Mutiny', remember that film with Humphrey Bogart, he had these two balls in his hand and was rubbing them around – he was the captain of the ship, you remember? And it's like that. I think most people enjoy it. I know you might think I'm crackers, but a cigar or a cigarette is a nice thing to hold, and twirl round in your fingers.
JL: I suppose it's better than playing round with your balls on stage. Is your club – the Embassy Club in Manchester – a good place to smoke?
BM: There's an ashtray on every table and people use their own sense. If they wanna smoke, they smoke. If they don't want to smoke, they don't need to smoke. And that's it. Over 50 years in show business, I've worked in places – well, when I first started there was no such thing as extractor fans and air conditioning and smoke things – you just worked. You could cut the smoke with a knife. There's nothing wrong with me now, I have no problems with me chest. The diabetes was caused by being mugged. I was mugged outside the Embassy Club (his club in Manchester) for £7,000 one Monday morning about 15 years ago. As a matter of fact they've just caught them, and they've all got big sentences – and that's 15 years ago – and one of them's grassed them up. So they've caught them all. They was watching me and they set about me with guns and masks and pickaxe handles – I had the money bag. And Harry Dowd, Manchester City's ex-goal-keeper, was there. He was coming out of the club with me. And I even got a laugh out of that. I said, 'I threw in the bag and he dropped it.' I've had no trouble with me chest and I must have been in a million places a million clubs – the London Palladium, MGM Grand in Las Vegas - and I've worked in atmosphere that's just been thick with smoke and I've had no trouble with me chest whatsoever. I'm 71 and I sing like a bird.
JL: And there's Roy Castle, non-smoker, singing like an angel. I know it's awful but he did blame his cancer on passive smoking…
BM: He never smoked. And it killed him! Which to me is a load of rubbish. I think cancer's in ya, or it's not in ya. I do, honestly.
JL: If you had to smoke in a doorway, whose doorway would you like most to smoke in?
BM: Tony Blair's. Waiting for that lovely wife of his coming out in that dressing gown. You remember that picture?
JL: I do, yes.
BM: Yep. Fucking hell!
JL: That was about the only time he gave us a bit of a thrill, really. What's your most memorable smoking experience?
BM: I remember the days when I worked on 'The Comedians' with Johnny Hamp, who made us all stars overnight, household names…unknowns who people'd never heard of. I was working in the clubs for a tenner a night, and now I can command £3-£4,000. I'm doing adverts – I've just done an advert for Kit-Kat. And I've worked all over the world. And the man (Hamp) made me a household name. I used to work on stage with a ciggie in me hand banging out the gags, one after another, people falling about with laughter. Wonderful, wonderful.
JL: What do you think of the British government imposing bans on tobacco ads, and particularly on smoking in clubs like yours?
BM: It won't mean a thing. If people want to smoke, they'll smoke. I don't think you'll ever stop them smoking. Not at all. Which is a sad thing, really. If smoking is killing people it's a sad thing. But if it isn't, then people are just gonna carry on smoking anyway.
JL: If there was a button that, once pressed, would stop everybody smoking – would you press it?
BM: Yes, I would. It's a thing you can do without. You can't do without breathing, you can't do without fresh air, and you can't do without food and you can't do without water. But you can certainly do without smoking.
JL: What's your favourite smoking gag?
BM: Winston Churchill was at the Cup Final, and this fella kept jumping up and down and annoying him. And Churchill says, 'Would you mind sitting down, please.' And the fella says, 'Aye, well I always like to keep on the move – I've got 14 children.' And Churchill says, 'Well, I smoke 20 cigars a day, but I take it out now and again.'
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